


Change Upon Change

by lirin



Category: Running Out of Time - Margaret Peterson Haddix
Genre: 5+1 Things, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 05:03:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11867307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lirin/pseuds/lirin
Summary: Five times Jessie knew something was different in the 1990s, and one thing that was entirely the same.





	Change Upon Change

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Doranwen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doranwen/gifts).



“William Henry Harrison. Elected in 1841, died a month later of pneumonia. John Tyler. Took office in 1841 after Harrison’s death, served the remainder of his term. James K. Polk. Elected in 1845, served one term. Zachary Taylor. Elected in 1849…”

There was so much more history to remember now. To think that once, she had thought eight presidents were hard to remember. Jessie tried not to fidget as Andrew droned on.

“...George Bush. Elected in 1989, served one term. Bill Clinton. Elected in 1993, near the end of his term and running for re-election.”

“Very good,” their tutor told them. She was wearing an old fashioned dress like the ones Ma wore, but she looked uncomfortable in it. Jessie supposed it was intended to make them feel more at home, but it just seemed silly. None of their rooms in the hospital looked anything like home and neither did the office they were sitting in now, so why should one dress make a difference? Her apron wasn’t even tied right.

Hannah elbowed Jessie. “One of the psychologists told me that modern children don’t even have to memorize all of the presidents anymore!”

Jessie frowned. “That’s weird.” _Weird_ was one of their new words, like _okay_.

“Turn in your books to page 211, and let’s talk some more about the Civil War,” said the tutor. As if she knew anything about it. She managed to make states’ rights and the annexation of Texas and the question of slavery sound like dry history—as unrelatable as the ancient Romans. This was the very Civil War that everyone in Clifton had said was coming. Mr. Smythe had said the United States were a powder keg, ready to blow up at the slightest provocation. He’d known war was coming.

He really had known, more than any of the children had realized. It seemed unfair, pretending to predict the future. Jessie thought she’d better learn everything she could so nobody could ever trick her like that again.

She opened the book to page 211. This dry textbook might be the start, but it wasn’t going to be the finish. Jessie was going to find every book she could, if that was what it took to get caught up.

* * *

The doctors said Jessie wasn’t contagious anymore, so she could have visitors if she wanted, but she would have to stay in the hospital for a while longer before she would be entirely better. The tutor came every day, and there were still lots of nurses to poke at her and take her temperature, and psychologists to talk to her. Ma and Pa and her siblings came as often as they were allowed, and Bob Haverford had come back several times for follow-up interviews, but there were still so many times that she was alone, and she didn’t know anybody else on the outside.

Except she did, sort of.

All she knew about Nicole was her full name and the school she went to. Nicole had said there were two other Nicoles in her class alone—surely what Jessie knew wasn’t enough to locate her. And even if Nicole could be found, would she even want to come? She had been friendly, but all Jessie had given her in return had been lies.

Bob had chuckled when Jessie asked him. “You’re a bit famous now,” he said. “It’s more likely that the rest of her classmates will be jealous than that she won’t want to visit. You already hit it off with her on the tour, didn’t you? She’ll understand that you couldn’t tell her why you were really there.”

Jessie trusted Bob, but she still couldn’t help but doubt until the following day, when a soft knock was followed by Nicole sticking her head in the door and saying “Hi.” She was carrying a colorful box that said “Connect Four.” Nicole set it down on the bedside table and pulled out a plastic frame and some pieces that looked like checkers. “I thought we could play a game,” she said. “They said I can’t talk to you about history because you’re still not caught up and need to learn about it from your tutor first, but we can talk about pretty much anything else.” She set the frame up and pushed the red checkers towards Jessie. “It’s a really simple game. You try to get four in a row before the other person can.”

Jessie picked up one of the checkers. “I’m sorry I didn’t—couldn’t—tell you who I really was or why I was wandering around the Clifton visitor’s center. You’re one of the nicest people I’ve met outside of Clifton. I didn’t want to lie to you.” She dropped her checker down the middle of the frame. It looked like a bull’s-eye as it sat there, unmoving.

“You needed to lie to me to keep your family and friends safe,” Nicole said. She dropped one of the black checkers next to Jessie’s red one. “I’ve heard all about what happened in the news. I think I would have done the same as you if I’d been in your shoes.”

Jessie dropped another checker on top of the first one. It didn’t look as much like a bull’s-eye now, just part of a multi-colored picture. It was like an allegory or something, paralleling how she’d felt like less of a target when she’d talked to Nicole on the tour—the only friend she’d made outside Clifton until she’d met Bob.

There were so many things she wanted to ask Nicole. What life was like being a Negro...Nicole wouldn’t have lived as a slave, since they were freed in 1863, but the tutor had implied that life hadn’t always been perfect for Negroes even after they were emancipated. What life was like as a teenager...the word was still so new to Jessie, yet apparently it described both of them.

She wasn’t sure how to ask, whether Nicole would mind nosiness. She’d never tried to befriend someone she hadn’t known from childhood. She’d never had the chance. She didn’t want to mess this one up.

Nicole dropped her second checker on top of her first piece. “So...I have an unfair advantage over you,” she said. “I’ve already seen what your home looks like, from the tour, and you don’t know anything about where I live. Do you want me to tell you about my life?”

Jessie nodded. “Yes!” That made it easy. Maybe Nicole wanted to be friends as much as she did.

* * *

Modern music could be very loud. And it wasn’t even the only noise filling this shopping mall. It was like a giant building with more stores inside than Jessie had seen in her life, and what seemed like hundreds of people. Their conversations echoed off the walls of the mall, and different music poured out of every shop. It made Jessie want to clap her hands over her ears.

“Come on!” Brittany said, tugging her into another store. She was the eldest child in the foster family Hannah was staying with, and this ‘girls’ day out’ shopping trip had been her idea. “You wanted to get more jeans, didn’t you?” She looked perfectly at ease with the noise. Even Hannah looked like she didn’t mind it too much.

“Need a break?” Nicole asked. Jessie supposed some of her feelings must have been showing on her face.

Jessie thought for a minute, but shrugged. “I’ll get used to it,” she said. “And Brittany’s right, I do need jeans.” She followed them into the shop.

It was quieter inside. Nobody else was shopping in this particular store at the moment, and there was only one type of music playing instead of the cacophony outside. The music still needed more fiddles and less yelling, though.

* * *

Jessie had seen Ma wearing jeans a few times now, but it still seemed terribly odd. But it didn’t matter, because Ma was there. And Pa! Jessie jumped out of the hospital bed and ran to hug them.

They seemed more real when she was squeezed up tight in a hug, face buried in Ma’s side. Then the only thing different was the strange smell of modern laundry detergent and the scratchiness of Ma’s new blouse. Jessie could forget how strange Ma’s hair looked, falling around her shoulders with a bit of curl to it, and how both her parents’ eyes were rimmed with red.

“I know you’re good parents, no matter what anybody else says,” Jessie whispered, still holding tight. “They’ll let us be together again for good, I promise.”

“I promise too,” said Pa.

Jessie wondered if his promise was the same as hers: something they wanted desperately but didn’t know if it could ever actually come true. She hugged him tighter. She didn’t want to ever let go.

Later, while the tutor was helping Andrew memorize the state capitals, Hannah leaned over. “Did you see Ma and Pa today?” she asked. “I did!”

Jessie nodded. “They looked sad.”

“I know,” Hannah whispered. She stared at her textbook.

Jessie stared at hers too. She didn’t know what to do. It had been bad enough to see Ma and Pa worried about the depression after the Panic of 1837. But they hadn’t cried then. She’d couldn’t remember a time she’d ever seen them cry, before now.

* * *

At home back in Clifton, most of the adults hadn’t been terribly interested in talking to children. They’d say enough to be polite, certainly, and speak to them when their daily activities or jobs required it, but Jessie had never gotten the impression that any of the adults outside her family were interested in her as a conversationalist.

And now here was a person who not only was interested in what she had to say, but their entire job was to talk to her! If the stakes had been less high, Jessie thought she might have enjoyed this.

“Tell me about your mom,” the psychologist said.

“I call her ‘Ma,’ not ‘Mom,’” Jessie corrected her. “Ma was one of the first people to know there was something wrong, because she’s a nurse. And she tried every way she could to get out, because she’s really brave. She had them put up quarantine signs to make the people running the tours look bad, and she would have gone outside if she could have fit into her old clothes, and she kept it secret that I was gone.”

“But those are all just things that she told you,” the psychologist interrupted. “Tell me some things you know from your own observation.”

Ma was just Ma. Jessie had known her all her life. How could she explain how important she was to her? “I know that she’s really good at cooking and really good at midwifing and she must have been a really good nurse before she came to Clifton to know that much about medical things. And she loves us a lot, because she’s my Ma, not because she’s being paid too, like you or any of the people in my foster home. And she didn’t want to lie to me, she didn’t! That was all Mr. Clifton and Mr. Neeley’s fault.”

“I understand.” The psychologist patted her hand. “I know you want to be able to trust your parents.”

Jessie glared at her. “I just want everyone to let me go home and be with my family again.”

“And that’s what we’re trying to do. Now, tell me about your sister Katie. When did you find out she was sick?”

* * *

Either the authorities wanted to keep it a secret, or they just didn’t decide until the last minute—Jessie didn’t know which was the case. Regardless, she didn’t know anything was going to happen until her foster mother came into the room she was now sharing with Hannah, to wake them up. “Pack all your things,” she told them. “You’re going home today.”

It was the best news Jessie had ever had. She pulled her meager belongings...the modern clothes that had been given to her, her history textbooks and a few novels...and was sitting at the breakfast table, trembling in excitement between bites of pancake, before she realized. “You said we’re going home,” she said. “Where is home, now?”

“It’s where Ma and Pa are,” Hannah said. “Right? They can’t expect us to feel at home somewhere our parents aren’t.”

Their foster mother smiled slightly. “You’re absolutely right. You get to go back to your parents today, and for now, you’re going back to Clifton. I’m not sure whether you’ll be living there permanently or coming back to live normal lives; you’ll have to ask your parents about that.”

The journey back to Clifton seemed so short and easy, compared to the journey that had brought Jessie away from it. There were no manholes this time; a gate swung open in front of them and they drove right onto the preserve.

The various social workers stayed in their cars, so it was only the six Keyser children who walked—slowly, tentatively—up to their old front door. Andrew lifted his hand as if he was going to knock, then thought better of it and grabbed the doorknob instead. Hannah reached for Jessie’s hand, and Jessie let her take it, because if Hannah was nervous even though she was older, then Jessie saw no reason to pretend she wasn’t nervous as well.

They walked hesitantly into their old home, this place that was so familiar and yet not familiar at all. And there were Ma and Pa! Ma was stirring something over the stove. Pa had been reading a book, but he had thrown it down to come hug them. Ma couldn’t run or she’d risk burning herself, but she still set the spoon aside and crossed the room before they’d scarcely had time to get inside.

All eight of them were hugging at once. Jessie had never done that before, but but it just felt right. Ma and Pa were smiling wider than she’d ever seen. And when she saw the look of love on their faces, it was like they’d never been apart. It didn’t matter what they were wearing or what had happened—Jessie knew her parents’ love for her was just the same as it had ever been.


End file.
